NINTH LETTER

The Castle at Upsala.

The manuscript contains a translation of the four Gospels in Gothic by Bishop Ulphilas. The good bishop died in the year 388, and this copy was made undoubtedly within a century of his death. Not only did Ulphilas make this translation, but he invented the Gothic alphabet, some of whose letters show his indebtednessto the Greek. The letters are stamped in silver upon purple parchment, while some of the capitals and more important words are in gold or otherwise illuminated.

It has been said: “The old monk who laboriously stamped this parchment with his single types, a letter at a time, little knew how near he came to inventing printing, yet had he only combined three or four types together and stamped a word at once, the great invention would have been made there and then.”

I am not so sure of this, for our modern printing-press uses letters set one at a time, as the old monk used his hot metal types. But evidently the world was not yet ripe for Gutenburg and his printing-press, and it had to wait another thousand years for the invention that opened the aristocratic halls of learning to the democracy of the world. A saying of Max Müller’s is worth quoting for you here: “To come to Upsala,” he says, “and not see the Codex Argenteus would be like going to the Holy Land without seeing the Holy Grave.”

I am glad that the guardians of the Codex are fully alive to its unique value. Every night, in its silver case, it is locked up in a fire and burglar-proof safe, for the authorities remember that many years ago a watchman stole ten leaves of the Codex. For twenty years they were lost, and only on his death-bed the thief confessed his folly and drew them out from the pillow beneath his head. Such a theft seems to me a good deal like stealing a red-hot stove, or, perhaps the Mona Lisa, for how a thief could expect to dispose of any of thesetreasures or profit by them without discovery is a mystery.

Another building here, to which I must not fail to introduce you, is the splendid cathedral, the noblest church in Sweden and the historic center of the kingdom. It has recently been so thoroughly restored that all the old cathedral has been renovated out of it, except its memories and its tombs. Yet from the modern standpoint it is a magnificent building, nearly four hundred feet long, and with three beautiful Gothic spires that soar as many feet into the air.

The tombs have interested me the most, however. Here lies Gustavus Vasa, in a granite sarcophagus between his two wives, who in effigy lie on either side of him, while no thoughts of jealousy or rivalry stir their granite hearts. Here, too, is the charming philosopher and naturalist, Linnæus, whose statue in Stockholm I described, and Swedenborg, the great mystic, who could look into heaven and hell and describe what he saw there, and whose works, which have so strong a hold on a multitude of Americans to-day, are published and re-published in a multitude of languages.

I have been introducing you only to “new” Upsala, and to people and books that are not more than a thousand or fifteen hundred years old; but there is an old Upsala about three miles from the cathedral, which I have greatly enjoyed visiting. It is within easy walking distance on this bright June day, and I set out to find my own way to Gamla Upsala, which was not a difficult task in spite of my slight knowledge of the Swedishlanguage, since the average Swede will take unlimited pains to tell a traveler what he wishes to know.

One of these polite gentlemen upon the street happened to hear me asking the way to Gamla Upsala. He was walking with his wife, and he told me to follow them and they would show me the way. I naturally supposed that they were going in that direction themselves, and trudged on behind them, since our limited knowledge of each other’s tongues did not allow much personal intercourse. They turned from one road into another, walking a good mile and a half, I should judge, until we came in sight of three singular mounds in the distance, a mile or more away. “These,” they said, pointing to them, “mark the site of Gamla Upsala.” Then they bade me a polite good afternoon and turned around to pursue their homeward journey. Apparently they had come all this way to show a solitary American the site of the ancient city and to make sure that he would not get lost on the straight and narrow road that leads to it.

As I approached the King’s Mounds, orKungs Högar, I found that they were not unlike theBin Tepe, or the Graves of the Thousand Kings on the Lydian plain, near old Sardis in Asia Minor. To be sure the tumuli of Lydia are for the most part far larger than the mounds of Gamla Upsala. Still these are very considerable tumuli, about sixty feet high and two hundred and twenty-five feet in diameter.

They are called the Mounds of Odin, Thor, and Frey, but you must not suppose, Judicia, that the old vikinggods are buried here. By the way, where do you suppose such mythical personages are buried? But someone, not knowing who the ancient occupants of these graves might be, gave them these names, which certainly add to the interest of Gamla Upsala. I almost felt, as I scrambled to the top of Odin’s Hill, which is the largest of the three, that I was standing on the grave of one of the ancient gods.

Of course inquisitive moderns have not allowed the ancient bones in these tombs to rest in peace, but all that they found when they opened them were the half-burnt remains of some old kings whose names and dates nobody is wise enough to know, together with some pieces of gold and copper ornaments, some glass dishes, and bones of the kings’ horses and dogs, all of which were burnt apparently in the same great holocaust which consumed his mortal remains. Whether his wives had to share the fate of his horses and dogs, deponent saith not.

There is another interesting mound not far from Odin’s tumulus. It is twenty feet lower than his grave and has a large level space on the top. This is the hill where the ancient, open-air parliament was held and where, as late as the days of Gustavus Vasa, the kings were accustomed to address the people.

Gamla Upsala is now a very small hamlet with a little stone church, whose high and narrow windows and massive tower make it look more like a fort than a sanctuary. Upon this spot, we are told, once stood a splendid temple to the stalwart old gods who havegiven their names to the tumuli—Odin, Thor, and Frey. It is only a little more than a hundred years since this temple was destroyed and since priests still offered sacrifices, perhaps of human victims.

Let me close my story of Gamla Upsala with a sentence from the story of Adam of Bremen, who wrote his Chronicle in the very last days of heathendom, about the year 1070. “In this sacred house,” he says, “which everywhere is adorned with gold, the people worship the images of three gods, and this so that Thor, who is the mightiest of them, occupies the seat of honor in the middle, while Odin and Frey have their places on each side of him. When pest or famine is at hand, they offer to Thor’s image; when it is war, to Odin’s; at wedding celebrations, to Frey.”[3]Adam also relates that near the temple stood a grove in which the bodies of victims, human beings as well as beasts, were hung up, “and this grove is sacred in the eyes of the heathen.” He says that “every tree in it is held to be divine on account of the death or blood of those offered there.” What a tremendous gap in the history of the world is indicated by the little distance between Odin’s Mound and that homely Christian church! What a tremendous advance from the big Gamla Upsala of the eleventh century to the little Gamla Upsala of the twentieth!

Faithfully yours,

Phillips.

Which tells of Swedish lakeland; the commodious craft on which one sails through it; with some side remarks on the coinage of the country and the honesty of the people. Returns to the four great lakes, and tells of hill-climbing by steamer and going down hill by the same route across Vettern and Venern until the falls of Trollhätten and Gotenburg are reached.

Lake Venern, June 20.

My dear Judicia,

While I am sailing across this magnificent lake I must indite another epistle to you, telling you of the fascinations of Swedish lakeland. There will be plenty of time, too, to write you all about it, for Lake Venern is eighty miles long, the largest lake, if I am not mistaken, in all Europe, and our steamer traverses almost its whole length. Let me advise you, if you ever have another long holiday, to spend it among Sweden’s lakes. You have seen the Swiss lakes more than once, and the Italian lakes and the Cumberland Lake region of England, but in many respects Sweden’s lakes surpass them all in size, in picturesqueness, and in the convenient and delightful way one may get from one to the other. It is true that there is no Mount Pilatus in Sweden, or Monte Rosa, but there are other charms which fully make up for the lack of the mountain scenery one finds in France and Italy. And as for the little “waters” which one finds in Cumberland,they pale into insignificance beside these great reservoirs of the purest, most translucent water on the earth’s surface.

But the great advantage that they have over every other lake region in the world is that you can see all the great lakes in a three-days’ journey without leaving the very comfortable steamer on which you embark at Stockholm.

At Lucerne you can have a fine excursion on theVierwaldstättersee, but, unless you come back by land, you must return by the same route to Lucerne. Your steamer cannot climb the hills and get over into Lake Geneva, or strike across country and find its way into Lake Thun and Lake Brienz; but that is just what you can do in Sweden. You can journey clear across the lower end of Scandinavia, from the Baltic to the Kattegat, passing through a continuous succession of the most delightful scenes, through rivers and canals, across lake after lake, past ancient castles that will tell you the whole story of Sweden, until at last you come out on the western sea and land at Sweden’s second greatest city, Gotenburg. In this journey you even climb some considerable hills without leaving your stateroom, unless you choose, or your comfortable seat on the steamer’s deck, and at some places in your journey you are more than three hundred feet above your starting point on the Baltic, or your arrival point on the Kattegat.

But let us begin at the beginning, for this journey is worth describing in detail. To begin with, the craft onwhich we set sail is no little motor boat or steam launch, as you might imagine when I tell you of its ability to climb hills, but a very substantial and commodious little steamer, with quite elegant staterooms, upholstered abundantly in red satin, and with two wide berths and ample toilet accommodations.

What a travesty it is, Judicia, to speak of many of the steamer cabins even on Atlantic steamers as “staterooms.” Rooms of state! Call them vaults, closets, or any other appropriate name. But, really, it is not very much of an exaggeration to call the cabins on the great Göta Canal line of Sweden staterooms. They are quite good enough for statesmen of average quality, and even royalty need not object to them for a three days’ occupancy.

The berths are not one above the other, to which the unfortunate man in the upper berth must climb by a precarious ladder, but are on either side of the room, and make very comfortable lounges by day. The table, too, on these steamers, is everything that could be desired; but that is to be taken for granted in Sweden. TheSmörgåsbordis abundant and varied, and the hot dishes are always admirably cooked. When your meal is finished you simply write down on a long account book which hangs on the wall what you have had, whether merely coffee (which includes all the cakes and sweet bread that you wish), orSmörgåsbord, or perhaps a full dinner.

At the end of the voyage the amount is reckoned up, and the cashier takes your word for what you haveeaten. You are very likely to be surprised at the smallness of your bill, whether she is or not.

This trustfulness in your probity tempts me to dilate upon the refreshing honesty of these Scandinavian nations. Especially if you come direct from Italy, the contrast is most refreshing. You never have to scan your bills and add up the items to see that the cashier has not slipped in a few extra francs for his or her perquisite. You need not even count your change, unless you want to make sure that the change-maker has not cheated himself. You need never bite your money or ring it on the pavement to be certain that it is not bad; or examine the date on the coins to find out whether the smiling clerk who gives you the change is not working off some obsolete coins on you which you cannot honestly dispose of without a loss of fifty per cent.

In Scandinavia akroneris akronerand anöreis anöre, and I should be as much surprised to find a bad coin in any of these kingdoms as to find one of the unmentionable little creatures, so common in some other countries, in a Scandinavian bed.

The coinage of Denmark, Sweden, and Norway is interchangeable. At any bank in any of the three kingdoms, or at any store where you may trade, you will receive money that is good in every other place, from Korsör to Hammerfest.

Each of these three kingdoms had its own money, with the head of its king stamped on its own coins, and its bank notes issued by its own banks. But Denmark’s money is exactly the same value as Sweden’s, andSweden’s of precisely the same worth as Norway’s, and the money of each passes current at its face value in all.

If, my dear Judicia, you will bring this idea of an assimilated currency to the attention of all the great nations, and persuade them to accept it, you will confer an enormous boon upon every traveler.

During this monetary discussion we have not made much headway along the Göta Canal. Now I will make up for lost time. A few minutes after our steamer left the quay at Stockholm we found ourselves among the islands of beautiful Lake Mälar, famous in Sweden’s story, but before long we came to the deep cut by which the waters of the lake join a bay of the Baltic. Lake Mälar covers nearly five hundred square miles, and though less than a fifth part as large as Lake Venern, it is yet one of the greatest lakes in Europe. Let me at least make you acquainted with the names of Sweden’s four inland seas, which ought to be as familiar to a traveler like yourself, as Lake Como or Maggiore. They are the Venern, the Vettern, the Hjelmar, and Mälar.

The Locks, Borenshult, Göta Canal.

Mr. Von Heidenstam, inSwedish Life in Town and Country, says: “It is a common saying that you cannot stand on any given spot in these districts without having a lake in view somewhere, for by the side of the giant lakes smaller ones abound, spread over the face of the whole country. Of the hundred and ten millions of acres forming the surface of the country, over eight and a half millions are covered by lakes. Large and small, they dot the green earth with blue wherever the eyeturns. The peasants call them the ‘eyes of the earth,’ and limpid and blue they are, like the eyes of the northern maidens.”

If you will consult the map you will easily understand our tortuous but delightful course across southern Sweden from Stockholm to Gotenburg.

The deep cut which I have told you about that leads from Lake Mälar to the Baltic Sea was soon passed (for in order to reach the great canal we must first get into the Baltic), and we found ourselves sailing among the beautiful islands and past the charming villas which dot the coast in this region. A few hours more and we entered another long, narrow gulf or fjord, until at Norrköping we struck the canal again. Before long we came to the fifteen steps by which our steamer climbs from little Lake Roxen to the level of the Vettern.

This is indeed the most delightful hill-climbing that I have ever enjoyed. From one lock to another the steamer rises, while the passengers can either stay on deck or they can get off and stroll up on foot.

We had plenty of time to visit Vreta Klosterkyrka, which is celebrated as the place where Ebba Leijonhufvud spent her widowhood and died in 1549. I do not know that Ebba was particularly celebrated for her exploits or for beauty of face or form, but she was the mother-in-law of Gustavus Vasa, and even that oft-derided relationship adds an interest to the place.

The beautiful church, which is built upon the ruins of the old cloister, contains the ashes of several kings, but these old forgotten worthies are not of so much interestas the coffins that we saw in another chapel of the church. There are five of them, piled one above the other, and each one contains a Douglas. The most famous Douglas of them all, a younger son of the head of the great Scottish clan, fought under Gustavus Adolphus in the Thirty Years’ War. For his bravery he was made a Swedish count, and many a Swedish noble with Douglas blood in his veins lives in Sweden to-day.

By the time we had sauntered slowly up the hill and had visited the site of Gustavus Vasa’s mother-in-law’s cloister, and ruminated sufficiently on the past, we were ready to take the steamer again for another lovely sail down an arm of Lake Vettern to Vadstena, and here we had time enough to go ashore and see another castle of Gustavus Vasa’s, who seems to have sprinkled his residences all over this part of Sweden. Here, we are told, “he celebrated his marriage with his third wife, Catarina, a blushing bride of sixteen, though the bridegroom was almost four times as old, and this, too, notwithstanding that the girl was already betrothed to a noble youth, and ran away and hid herself in her father’s garden when the old king came to court her.”[4]

In Vadstena are two churches, each some five hundred years old, one of which is famous as the last resting place of St. Bridget, to whom I have already introduced you, for here she had founded the celebrated nunnery, whose inmates had to take such strict, ascetic vows.

Across Lake Vettern we sailed through another canal, that led us between charming pastures, musical withthe tinkle of cowbells; past fine farms, the red farmhouse making a spot of color on the rich green turf; past gently wooded hills, until we came to magnificent Lake Venern. But we had to get downhill before we reached the Kattegat, for we were one hundred and forty-four feet above the sea, and eleven great locks, each of them one hundred and twelve feet long, is the stairway by which we descended.

Since it took some time for our steamer to go down the hill, we walked instead, for we get many a glimpse from the shore of some of the most beautiful rapids I have ever seen. These are the falls of Trollhätten. Is not that a name that lingers upon your lips and suggests all sorts of trolls and sprites and water nymphs? A tremendous volume of water comes rushing down over the falls, for Europe’s largest lake, as I have before told you, here empties itself, or rather throws itself into the sea. Except for its one majestic fall, Niagara cannot show us anything more exciting in the way of cataracts than Trollhätten. There are five of them, the smallest twenty-five feet high, and the biggest forty-two feet of steep incline, while the river is lined on either side by jagged rocks and high cliffs, past which it comes surging and swirling with deafening roar, hurling its spray high in the air.

I wish the poet-laureate Southey had seen the falls at Trollhätten and had expended some of his adjectives upon them instead of wasting them all upon that little streamlet at the end of Derwent Water when he wrote “How the Waters come down at Lodore.”

At the foot of the falls we took the steamer again for a few hours’ sail down the Göta River, until we came to Sweden’s greatest commercial city, Gotenburg, where steamers are waiting to carry Sweden’s products and Sweden’s emigrants to the ends of the earth.

I fear I may have given you the impression, as I have described the getting up and downhill across Sweden’s broad southern end, of merely a holiday waterway, but the Göta Canal is the great artery of Sweden. Through it, up and down these gigantic steps, pass twelve thousand vessels every year, some of them steamers capable of making an Atlantic voyage, some of them full-rigged schooners or brigs.

The charm of the trip, too, is not by any means confined to the scenery or the ancient castles, for our fellow passengers, by their gentle politeness, do much to make the journey memorable. If you had been with us, they would have taken pains to find out any titles which the American colleges may have incautiously conferred upon your husband, and would always address you as the “Lady Doctor.” They would not think of using the wordni(you) in addressing you. We are told about one of the young lady clerks in a great store in Stockholm who sent word to a gentleman that his son had insulted her. On asking the girl what the insult was, she replied: “He addressed me asni.” I am speaking now of the way in which chance acquaintances or strangers address one another.

The Gorge of the Göta at Trölhatten.

But now and then, as we hear our fellow passengers talking together, we notice a peculiarly affectionatestress of accent upon the little worddu, and we know that the two men who are talking together are fast friends, or they would never address each other as “thou.” “The event marks an important stage in their friendship, it is said, and is accompanied by a little ceremony. The higher in rank, or the elder of the two, says, ‘Let us lay aside our titles.’ Pouring out bumpers (let us hope it is always in Sweden’s temperance beverage), they stand erect, and clinking glasses drink the brothers’Skol. Then, grasping each other warmly by the hand, they say: ‘Thanks, brother.’ Thereafter they are ‘dubrothers’; they always address each other asdu, or ‘brother.’”

This custom offosterbrödralag, or foster brotherhood, is as old as Sweden itself, but in olden times the foster brothers instead of clinking glasses cut gashes in their arms and let their blood mingle together as it fell to the earth, a too strenuous ceremony for these milder-mannered days.

Have I not told you enough, Judicia, to prove the proposition with which I set out: that there is no more charming journey in the world, when we consider the scenery, the historic associations, our means of conveyance, and our fellow passengers, than this trip through Sweden’s magnificent Göta Canal?

Faithfully yours,

Phillips.

Describes the ancient city of Visby; the Gotlanders of old; their wonderful wealth; their defeat by King Valdemar, and the vats of gold that he demanded for the city’s ransom. Returning to more modern days, Midsummer’s Day, the great holiday of Sweden, is described.

Visby, June 24.

My dear Judicia,

Please refer to the map once more, and you will see in the blue water, nearly halfway between the Swedish coast and the Baltic province of Russia, a long, scraggly island, with many capes and indentations. You will see that it is called Gotland, and on its western shore you will see that there is a city called Visby. I do not know that I can give such a traveler and geographer as yourself any real information about Gotland, but I will at least venture to refresh your memory concerning this most interesting island, for a very considerable part of the world’s history for a good many scores of years centered in this piece of sea-washed land, which contains barely twelve hundred square miles of surface.

At one time Visby, which has now dwindled to a somewhat obscure tourist resort, was the London of northern Europe. The East and the West paid their tribute to it. Russia sent her timber and her furs, and England and Germany and Flanders their preciousstuffs, which were here exchanged for other precious stuffs and then went their several ways to all parts of Europe.

One of their old ballads tells us:

“The Gotlanders weigh their gold with twenty pound weights,And play with choicest jewels,The pigs eat out of silver troughs,And the women spin with golden distaffs.”

“The Gotlanders weigh their gold with twenty pound weights,

And play with choicest jewels,

The pigs eat out of silver troughs,

And the women spin with golden distaffs.”

That the old ballad had some foundation in fact is shown us by the splendid ruins that tell us of Visby’s former greatness.

Throughout Gotland there are no less than ninety great Gothic churches, most of them in ruins, while in Visby alone were sixteen of these churches, some of them among the largest in Europe. So much has the city dwindled that in only one of these churches is heard the voice of prayer and praise to-day. The walls of ten others can still be seen, but they are merely magnificent ruins.

That the ancient Gotlanders were proud of their splendid isolation, in the middle of the Baltic, and were not inclined to bend the supple knee to any potentate, is indicated by a tradition that has come down to us, of the ambassador whom these island people sent to the king of Sweden to seek an alliance for mutual offense and defense. This ambassador was named Strabagn, which being interpreted means “Long Legs.”

When he reached Upsala, where was then the royal palace, he found the king and queen dining in their great banquet hall. The king had a grudge againstthe Gotlanders, whom he considered too toplofty and independent, and so Mr. Longfellow was kept standing in the hall while the royal pair continued their sumptuous meal. At last the king condescended to ask gruffly, “What’s the news from Gotland?” “Nothing” replied Strabagn, “except that a mare on the island has foaled three colts at a birth.” “Ah,” said the king, “and what does the third colt do when the other two are sucking?” “He does as I do,” answered Long Legs; “he stands and looks on.” This stroke of wit pleased the king and queen so much that they invited the ambassador to make a third at their table, and were finally willing to conclude a treaty which was as much to the advantage of Sweden as of Gotland.

The thirteenth century was the Golden Age of Gotland. In this century the great warehouses were built, and it became the commercial metropolis of northern Europe. There were few stronger fortresses in the world, for an enormous stone wall thirty feet high surrounded the city, and from the wall no less than forty-eight huge towers arose.

It does not take much imagination to reproduce ancient Visby, for thirty-eight of the forty-eight towers are still standing. They are more than sixty feet high, and one can see in each of the five stories the holes through which the archers fired their arrows, doubtless winged with death for many a foe, while from the battlemented top of the towers huge stones were thrown from the catapults.

But in spite of Visby’s isolation, and in spite of hermighty fortifications, she was not impregnable as she supposed, for in 1361 Denmark, which in those early days seems to have always been the evil genius of Sweden, sent an army under the command of King Valdemar Atterdag to capture the city. The people behind their strong fortifications at first laughed at him and mustered all their troops to defend the city, but Valdemar was victorious, nearly two thousand of Visby’s noblest defenders were slain, and the city was at the mercy of the Dane.

He would not accept its surrender and accord it the honors of war, even after it had capitulated, but tore down a part of the wall to prove his ruthless might and marched as a conqueror to the center of the city.

One is reminded by Valdemar’s conquest of the hard terms that Pizarro made when he conquered the Peruvians. You remember that for the ransom of King Atahualpa he went into a great room, and drawing a red mark on the wall as high as he could reach he told the Peruvians that they must fill that room with gold as high as the red mark if they would release their king from bondage and save him from death.

King Valdemar did something of the same sort to the Visbyites, for he took the three biggest ale vats that he found in the city and commanded the people to fill them with gold and silver within three hours. So frightened were the inhabitants by his bloodthirsty cruelty that they obeyed, stripping themselves of their golden ornaments, rifling their churches and their treasure-houses, until the big vats were full to the brim.

But even this did not avail to save them from further rapine, for Valdemar made a clean sweep of all that was left and poor Visby was plundered by the rapacious troops of all her riches.

I should like to be able to tell you that I saw the bones of Valdemar Attardag safely encoffined where he could do no more harm, but the next best thing was to see theJungfrutornet, or the “Maiden’s Tower,” where, according to tradition, the noble maid who opened the gates of Visby to the Danish king, whom she loved, was walled up alive. You need not waste much sympathy on this maiden, however, for I am told on good authority that she is a strictly mythical girl, and that her story was invented by the people of Visby to account for what many believed was a somewhat cowardly capitulation of the city to the Danes.

King Valdemar, however, must have had one or two redeeming traits of character, for he erected a great stone cross on the battlefield to commemorate the death of the eighteen hundred citizens whom he slew. The cross can still be seen, scarcely marred by the passage of these five hundred years, and the inscription on it is not a record of triumph so much as a memorial to the dead.

You have noticed, perhaps, that this letter is dated “June 24.” This date may not have any great significance for you, but it is a high day in Sweden, perhaps the most joyous of all the year, for it is Midsummer’s Day, the day without a night in many parts of this northern land.

In almost every village in Sweden you will see to-day aMajstang. Perhaps you can guess that aMajstangis a Maypole, though I think I hear you say, “Why have a Maypole in June?” The Swedish word for May,Maj, is an ancient term meaning “green leaf,” and June 24 is preëminently the Feast of the Green Leaf.

It is not the somber evergreens, however, that decorate the windows at Christmas time and that stand dressed with Christmas candles and Christmas gifts; the Midsummer Tree is the birch. If it should ever be put to a vote in Sweden, I think the Swedes would decide that the birch is their most beloved tree. It is equally beautiful in summer and in winter. In the former its delicate drooping branches are covered with green, and in the latter with white. There is nothing quite so lovely in the northern latitudes as the birch trees silvered with a thick coating of frost in midwinter, unless it be these same birch trees in their glad green livery in midsummer.

On June 23, in preparation for Midsummer’s Day, all the lads and lassies that you see in the country will have a load of birch boughs on their shoulders. In Stockholm hundreds of wagons and little steamers bring tens of thousands of young birch trees to the city, and every window and doorway is decorated with its delicate green. Even the dray horses are decked out in green, and “the wearing of the green” is more popular in Sweden on June 24 than in Ireland on March 17.

This is the out-of-door festival of the country. At Luleå in the far north the people all flock on Midsummer’sEve to a mountain near by called Mjaolkudds Berget. Here each family builds a small bonfire and over it makes their coffee, which is supposed to have a peculiar flavor and potency on Midsummer’s Eve. The midnight sun cannot quite be seen from Mjaolkudds Berget, but according to the ancient custom the coffeepot must be placed on the hot coals just as the last rim of his upper disk disappears. Before the coffee is brewed, the upper disk is again visible above the horizon, and then the coffee can be drunk by every member of the family, from the great-grandmother to the youngest scion.

This of all days is a day of life and color in Sweden. Let us not stay in little Visby, with its mournful ruins reminding us of the golden days of Gotland, but go out into the country, for nature is ever fresh and new. She knows nothing about ruins, or, if she does allow some giant tree to totter and fall in the forest, she soon covers up his decaying form with moss and creepers. The colors that we see are not all green by any means, for this is the day when Swedish maidens adopt the bright, ancient costumes of their country, the Crown Princess herself having set the example. The Maypole is set up on every village green, and the children first are given the right of way. Hand in hand they romp around the Maypole, singing the folk songs and the glees which Sweden’s children for many a generation have sung on Midsummer’s Day. Then the older ones take their place, and all is motion and gladness and color and song.

If we should find ourselves in the woods after theday’s festivities are over, we should very likely see some silent, solitary maidens wandering through the fields, in the long twilight which here lasts till midnight. Do not think that they are lovelorn lasses deserted by their swains, for they are simply seeking to know their own fortunes, which Midsummer’s Night reveals to them. In one of the provinces the maiden must pick three flowers each, of three different kinds, and must speak to no one until the next morning. These flowers she puts under her pillow when she goes to bed, and if she has been conscientiously tongue-tied, and has been quite alone when she picked the flowers, and has replied to every question which teasing suitors would put to her only by signs, she will dream of her future husband, and the next morning will know who he is to be.

In other provinces she has to pick nine different kinds of flowers from as many different farms, and this bouquet is even more efficacious than a smaller one. Why should we not have such a midsummer holiday in America? It is true that we have our Fourth of July, which is not very far from the right date, but, however “safe and sane” we may make it, the Fourth of July can never be anything but a patriotic holiday, nor should it be.

Thanksgiving Day is too late in the year for an out-of-door holiday, and the thirtieth of May is dedicated to a sacred celebration all its own. But why should we not have one genuine out-of-door day, a day when we shall see to it that every city child may romp and play in God’s green fields, and when we may make it a joyous duty to thank the Giver of all, not only for the harvestsand for the full granaries as on Thanksgiving Day, but for the sun and the green trees and the flowers and grass and everything that makes us glad to be alive? What day could be so good for such a celebration in America as well as in Sweden as Midsummer’s Day?

Before we bid good-by to Gotland and Visby, let us climb in the late evening twilight the ruined towers of the church of St. Nikolaus. From the old wall we can look out to sea, and if our imagination is strong enough, supplemented by a sufficient knowledge of old traditions, perhaps we shall see an eerie, reddish light on the calm waters of the Baltic. This light comes from two great carbuncles in the bottom of the Baltic. These carbuncles once adorned the western gable of the church of St. Nikolaus, where, according to the tradition, “these carbuncles shone with the brightness of the sun at noonday, throughout the night, and served as guiding lights to storm-tossed mariners far out on the Baltic wave. Twenty-four soldiers stood constantly on guard to watch these ruddy gems, the most precious possessions of the church, and no one, on pain of death, might approach the sanctuary after the going down of the sun.”

Ruins of St. Nikolaus Cathedral, Visby, Gotland.

King Valdemar could not leave such priceless jewels to St. Nikolaus, and so he snatched them from the rose windows which they adorned, put them on his biggest ship, and sailed away to Denmark. But justice followed the sacrilegious freebooter; his ship was wrecked on one of the little islands which line the coast of Gotland, and the king himself barely escaped with his life. The carbunclessank to the bottom of the sea, which accounts for that strange glow which any one with a vivid imagination can see from the ruined tower of St. Nikolaus as he looks off on the peaceful Baltic.

Faithfully yours,

Phillips.

Wherein something is told of Sweden’s art and artists; the ancient rock-cutting of Bohus; the art treasures collected by the heroes of the Thirty Years’ War; Cederstrom’s picture of Charles XII; Carl Larsson’s pictures of the home; the mural paintings of the schoolhouses; also something about Sweden’s great authors and singers.

Stockholm, June 30.

My dear Judicia,

With your love for libraries and picture galleries I should not dare to send you this last letter from Sweden without telling you something about the Swedes who have contributed to literature and art, though, if I should attempt to go into the subject exhaustively, I fear that many names of Swedish artists and authors would be unfamiliar even to you.

Sweden’s first and original art gallery is a strange one indeed, for it is unroofed except by the blue dome of heaven, and not a canvas hangs upon its walls. Nevertheless it is one of the most interesting galleries in all Europe. It is found in the province of Bohus, on the west coast of Sweden, north of Gotenburg. Shall we call these old artists sculptors or painters? The material that they used was the solid rock, the face of the cliffs that slopes up gently from level fields. They did not chisel out a statue, but with some bronze tools in lieu of brushes they cut the figures which they would portrayin the rock, not making them stand out as does the Lion of Lucerne, but cutting them like solid intaglios in the face of the rock itself.

So shallow are the cuttings that water has to be poured upon them to bring the figures out from the gray rock in which they are cut, but as the water trickles down from the bucket which the stout maiden who acts as guide and guardian of this picture gallery splashes upon the rock, wonderful shapes appear: viking ships, some large enough to be manned by a crew of one hundred men, evidently the warships of the long ago; men on horseback and men on foot; men plowing with yokes of oxen, while now and then there towers above all the men and beasts a gigantic figure with an ax or a thunderbolt in his hand, no doubt the God of War under whose ægis the old Northmen went out to battle.

The most common of these rock pictures are the representations of the viking ships, showing that in those days, as in these, the Scandinavians were great sea-faring people. The prows of these ancient piratical craft one often sees reproduced on the roofs of Swedish and Norwegian houses to-day. Of course these pictures are very crude, very much such as a child of five years of age would draw upon his slate to-day. But that is natural, for you must remember that they were drawn in the childhood of Scandinavia, at least twenty-five if not thirty-five hundred years ago, for it has been proved conclusively that they were chiseled by men of the Bronze Age of Sweden, which lasted from fifteen hundred to five hundred years before Christ.

We are very grateful to you, crude artists of the older time, for your pictures, for they tell us many things about ancient Sweden. They tell us that you sailed the seas in great ships rowed by a hundred men, though you do not seem to have known how to harness the winds to your craft, for we see no signs of masts or sails. We know that you had dogs and cows and horses, and that you plowed your fields with a crooked stick drawn by a pair of oxen. We know that you had carts that ran on two wheels, and that you were expert with spear and shield, and I venture to say that your art museum, old as it is to-day, will last longer than the Pitti or the Uffizi; and long after Macaulay’s New Zealander has gazed upon the ruins of London from his picturesque position upon the bridge, the pictures in your gallery will still lead mankind to speculate upon the kind of folk whom you chiseled in the everlasting rocks. No fire can destroy your gallery, no thief can steal your Mona Lisa, no conqueror can carry away your art treasures.

It is a far cry from the rock galleries of Bohus to the fine collections of old and new masters of which Stockholm and Gotenburg boast. Some of the finest pictures, too, are not found in the metropolis of either eastern or western Sweden, but in the palaces and castles which dot the interior of the country. I have already told you about some of these palaces like Skokloster and others, which contain Correggios and Titians and pictures of Paul Veronese, for in the Thirty Years’ War the mighty Swedish generals fell heir to many ofthe splendid picture galleries of southern Germany, and all they had to do was to pick out the best pictures by the greatest masters and send them to their northern home.

In those days “looting” was not “stealing,” at least in the eyes of the victors, and they had this excuse at least, that the pictures and works of art, iftheyhad not taken them, would have fallen into worse hands. They would have reminded you that their great opponent Tilly, when he captured Heidelberg and destroyed the library, could find no better use for the most valuable manuscripts than to use them as a litter for his horses. In this way the Codex Argenteus, of which I have before written you, was taken when the Swedes captured Prague and sent on its far journey to Upsala.

I am afraid that most of the names of Swedish artists would hardly be recognized by you, though I think you would admire some of their paintings as much as I do. I have time and room in this letter to tell you of only two that greatly interested me.

Baron Cederstrom devoted himself to the period of Charles XII, whose tragic story you remember. Cederstrom’s greatest picture shows the body of the king borne on a stretcher by a dozen soldiers over the dreary, snow-covered, mountainous defiles that separate Norway from Sweden. “The pathos of this pitiable end to so glorious a career appears in the attitude of a solitary mountain huntsman, who, with his boy and dog, stands by the wayside as the procession passes. He is the only one to doff his fur cap and salute theremains of one who but a short time before made half Europe tremble, while the other half was lost in amazement at his extraordinary fortunes and prodigious victories.”

Another artist whose pictures are of unusual interest is Carl Larsson, the most popular artist in Sweden to-day. He is the painter of the home, of the fireside and the nursery, of the sitting room and the kitchen, of the boy and girl and the grandmother as well. His own son and daughter figure in many of his pictures.

One that especially impressed me was a canvas representing this same son and daughter gazing at a skull on the center table in their home. The look of serious half-comprehension on the girl’s face as she points out the skull to her brother, and of half-frightened awe with which he gazes at it, will not soon fade from my mind. Another portrait of his daughter leaning against a birch tree, the white bark and new leaves no purer than her own sweet face, is also a picture to be remembered. It has been copied upon so many postcards that the Swedes, at least, are not likely to forget it.

Mr. Von Heidenstam well characterized Larsson when he says: “His audacity, his love of novelty and adventure, the freshness of his impressions, the youthfulness of his enthusiasms, and his whole vision of life are Scandinavian to the core. In his pictures of home life, mostly taken from his own home, he is genial, happy, fond of bright colors, of flowers and sunshine, enraptured with existence, and prone to see its bright side.”

The Swedes are wise in not relegating all the paintingsof their best artists to museums or picture galleries, which are seldom visited by the people, but many of the higher and even primary schools in Stockholm and other cities have been adorned with mural paintings by their best artists: Larsson, Prince Eugene, Oscar Björck, Thegerstrom, and Nils Kreuger are all well-known painters, who have put some of their best work upon the walls of Sweden’s schoolhouses, picturing landscapes, national customs, and some of the great events in Sweden’s history, and placing them where Sweden’s children cannot help being impressed by them.

I cannot honestly say that the chief charm of Sweden consists in the spell which her artists have woven about her, and I suppose few people would come to Sweden to study art. Her real fascination lies in her glorious out-of-doors—in her noble forests, her shimmering lakes, her glorious snow fields and frost sculpture in winter, her rushing rivers and turbulent rapids—all these things I have tried to tell you about, and this is the raw material of the artist.

Compared with Italy or Spain, Sweden’s art is yet very young, but, with such models as nature’s lavish hands has furnished on every side, it seems to me very probable that the great artists of the future will be found in these Scandinavian lands.

I wish they would spend more time in Lapland in midwinter. I wish they would paint for us the little trees that Jack Frost converts into white coral every day. I wish they would paint for us the rare combination of sunrise and sunset, and the glowing sky where thesun never rises at all. I wish they would show him to us not only on the longest day of the year at midnight, as they have often done, but on the shortest days, as he peers timidly above the horizon, or goes bowling along for an hour or two on its very edge. These are pictures which no country but Sweden furnishes in their perfection, and pictures which the Swedish artist could most easily reproduce and which would make his canvas immortal.

The authors of Sweden are many and well beloved. I can name but two of them here, though I fear the Swedes will never forgive me if I do not mention Bellman, their Robert Burns, and some others. I pick out these two because they are as well beloved in America as in Sweden. Tegnér is one of them. He may be called, perhaps, the Macaulay of Sweden, only his lays are not those of ancient Rome, but of ancient Sweden. Someone has said that “his heroic poems sent a thrill through old and young when first they were published.” He became popular throughout all Europe, and more than fifty translations of his poems are found in a dozen different European languages.

Longfellow made him known and loved by American readers by his beautiful translation of theChildren of the Lord’s Supper. “The scene in the country church, decked out with flowers and evergreens for the solemn ceremony, the rustic boys and girls bowing and curtsying as they made their responses before the assembled congregation, and the attitude and words of the patriarchal pastor are all true to life.”

Another of your best-loved authors, Judicia, I must remind you, was also a Swede—Frederika Bremer. She was also more than a writer of charming tales. She was an ardent champion of woman’s rights, but I warrant you she would never have used dynamite in obtaining them, or have poured paint into letter boxes to secure “votes for women.” Her good work for their uplift is still carried on by the “Frederika Bremer Union.” It protects and encourages women who are struggling to make a place for themselves in the world, and seeks in every way to raise the standard of woman’s work and wages. Our former American Minister, Mr. Thomas, gives an interesting account of a call he made upon her in 1864, nearly fifty years ago, only a year before her death:

“Up three flights of a stone stairway to a little landing, I make my way,” he says. “A curtsying Swedish maid answers my knock and shows me into a cozy sitting room. Presently a little old woman with a decided stoop in her shoulders enters and meets me with extended hand and a pleasant smile, bidding me welcome with one of the sweetest voices I ever listened to. This was one forenoon in January, 1864. The cozy sitting room was in Stockholm in the fourth story of a brick house, on the long Drottning-Gatan, and the little old woman was Frederika Bremer, the great Swedish novelist.”

This was in the darkest period of our Civil War. Mr. Thomas asked Miss Bremer for her autograph for the Sanitary Commission Fair, soon to be held in NewYork, explaining that the proceeds would be devoted to the sick and wounded soldiers. “It will give me real joy,” she said, “to do anything to help on liberty in America, or to comfort the soldiers who have become disabled in fighting for it.” Her eyes beamed brightly as she spoke, and her whole manner showed how actively she was interested in our cause and country.

“This interestingtête-à-têtegave me the best opportunity for observing Miss Bremer,” continues Mr. Thomas. “The stoop of her shoulders was hid in the ample cushions of her easy chair. A neat, white lace cap covered her head. Her gray hair was brushed straight back from a noble, lofty forehead, white as marble, and her mild blue eyes beamed with a tender compassion that made one forget the great author in the sympathizing friend and compelled me to call her beautiful, for beauty of soul shone forth in every glance.”

I have quoted this intimate description, for there are few living Americans who have actually seen and talked with the gentle authoress, and I fear me there are few Americans who read her books to-day, but you have not forgotten how, in our early days, her pure and wholesome novels were justly admired and loved.

Do you remember the little girl who for some childish misdemeanor was shut up in a dark closet as a punishment, and how she found there Miss Bremer’sHome Life, and how she lay down at full length on the floor, placing the book as near the crack of the door as she could, reading the story nearly half through before thetime of her punishment had expired? She gained more from her punishment than anyone but herself knew, for Frederika Bremer’s charming picture of home life remained with her as an inspiration through all her life.

Speaking of our early days, Judicia, I was reminded that we must belong to a former generation when I asked Aylmer when we were together in Luleå what he knew about Jenny Lind, the great Swedish soprano. Would you believe it, he had never heard of her? The singer who made the greatest sensation in America of anyone that ever crossed the ocean; the singer who was as good as she was beautiful, and whose voice was no purer or sweeter than her life! We at least know how the ticket offices were besieged by eager thousands who wished to hear her voice, and what extravagant prices, as they were then considered, were paid for her concerts. And yet Aylmer had never heard of this most famous of all northern warblers, of this great philanthropist, as she became in her later life! Moreover he confided to me that he had never heard of Christine Nilsson, a more modern singer of almost equal fame. Well, well, we must be growing antiquated!

There is one man who to be sure cannot be classed as an artist or an author, and yet I suppose he has done more for literature as well as for science and the cause of peace than any other man in Sweden. This is Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite, an article which we chiefly associate with war, but which has really done more to revolutionize mining and engineering. Thanks to dynamite, it has been possible to bore the mightytunnels through the Alps; to knock down the iron mountains of northern Sweden and send them off piecemeal to other parts of the earth; to dig the subways of New York and Boston and Chicago, and to tunnel the North River for the commuters of Manhatten. No man ever did more good with his vast wealth, or disposed of it more wisely when he died, than Alfred Nobel, and now each year magnificent awards of some forty thousand dollars each are given by this foundation to people who have achieved great things in physics, in medicine, in literature, and for peace.

You will observe, Judicia, that I have not bored you with any stories of Swedish games and sports, of skiing and ski jumping, of bobsleighing and rodeling, and that I have not even alluded to Swedish gymnastics. There is a method in my seeming madness, for though I am much interested in these matters, especially in the out-of-door sports, I am not quite so wild about them as is Aylmer, and, since they are common to all Scandinavia, I will leave them for him to describe and thus give his Norway a great advantage, when you come to hold the scales of justice between the eastern and western lands of the peninsula. But I beg you to remember that Sweden is quite as famous in these particulars as her sister kingdom across the mountains.

Faithfully yours,

Phillips.

Back to Index Next